


My Foundations Were Made of Clay

by theshipsfirstmate



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Earth-2, F/M, OTA goes to E2, Team Arrow, fic prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 02:23:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6265843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshipsfirstmate/pseuds/theshipsfirstmate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: “I wish you could write a fic where either Team Arrow or Team Flash meets Earth-2 Team Arrow.”</p>
<p>OTA visits Earth-2 to seek help from the "other" Green Arrow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Foundations Were Made of Clay

_Prompt: “I wish you could write a fic where either team arrow or team flash meets Earth 2 team Arrow.”  
_

_A/N: And then this happened. If I had a stomach for multi-chaps (I don’t. Exhibit A: the woefully unfinished Slave to the Wires) I’d do a whole ‘verse of this. SO MANY IDEAS. Nonetheless, I hope y’all enjoy, and lovely anon, I hope this is what you were looking for._

_Title from “[My Father’s Eyes](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DIigRv6B763k&t=ZGQ0MzE1OTZkM2JhZGNiNWRlYWY2ODBkYzc4OGEwN2M4ZmFmZDcwOSxkcDBRaVRHdA%3D%3D)” by Eric Claption_

**My Foundations Were Made of Clay**

“I don’t believe this…”

“John, we’ve got to keep our heads down and keep moving.” Oliver’s voice is mostly serious, tinged with just a hint of annoyance. Felicity squeezes his hand where her fingers are still laced through his, considers it a blessing he hasn’t let go since the moment they stepped through the portal.

“I know, I just…can you believe this?” Digg’s got that same wonder in his voice that crops up every time he sees Barry run and Felicity imagines that’s how a young Johnny Diggle used to sound on Christmas morning. A smile twitches at her lips, but she tries to fight it, for Oliver’s sake.

“It’s like there’s an Instagram filter on the whole world,” she agrees. “And it looks like everyone bought their clothes in Brooklyn. Earth-1 Brooklyn, I mean. God, I can’t even imagine what Earth-2 Brooklyn must be like.”

“Maybe that’s where everyone wears jeans and sweats,” Digg grins a little, eyes darting every which way as they make their way down the streets of a sepia-toned Starling City.

“Let’s just keep our heads down,” Oliver all but growls, finally fed up with their sight-seeing, “and find the Arrow.”

He hasn’t said it, hasn’t actually said the words once. Felicity keeps saying them for him, hoping they’ll stick, hoping he’ll accept, at least verbally, what’s about to happen. She’s been concerned about him shutting down ever since Barry told them what he knew of the problem, and his so-crazy-it-just-might-work solution. It’s been a long time since she’s worried like this about him putting his walls up, and which side she’ll be on if he does.

“Where do you think your father might have set the lair up?” she asks cautiously, knowing it will probably fall to her tech skills to find Robert Queen, but wondering if there’s some kind of inherent biological sensor that might help Oliver track him down.

“Barry said on this Earth, my mother’s still running Queen Consolidated,” Oliver answers, voice devoid of emotion, though Felicity knows how hard he must be working to make himself sound flat. “I think we start there, see if he set up something in the basement.”

She’s seen the Lazarus Pit in action, faced down superheroes and assassins, seen one ex-boyfriend go microscopic and another travel through time. And yet, preparing herself to meet Oliver’s father, to see a Green Arrow that isn’t the man beside her, is perhaps, the most surreal thing Felicity can imagine.

Thankfully, Oliver’s hunch is a step in the right direction, and they’re able to break into a service entrance behind QC to access a secret elevator system remarkably similar to the one they used in the campaign office. Felicity allows herself a proud, private smile when it only takes her a few extra seconds to hack into the framework, and then they’re descending, ready or not, to meet Earth-2’s Green Arrow and their own destiny.

When the doors slide open to the basement lair, she glimpses the setup, also familiar, for a just a second before a shrill alarm sounds and the lights black out.

“Who’s there?” The voice is booming, and modulated, but Oliver inhales sharply beside her in a way that tells her he recognizes it. He’s not holding her hand anymore. She doesn’t know when he let go, doesn’t know if she should grab it back or leave him be.

“Dad?”

A single light flickers on, maybe 100 feet in front of them, and standing there, is the Green Arrow. But not the Green Arrow she knows. It’s like when you have a dream about your childhood home, Felicity thinks. You recognize the atmosphere, the feeling it evokes, but when you look closely, nothing’s quite in the right place.

This is Robert Queen, she recognizes the face from a photograph that sits on their mantle. But he’s dressed in green leather, lowering a bow that had been pointed in their direction. Everything is familiar and totally foreign at the same time.

“Oliver?” When the man speaks again, his voice is un-modulated and Felicity is oddly surprised to hear how much he sounds like his son. Or, vice-versa, she supposes.

Oliver takes a few steps forward, and Digg and Felicity flank him on instinct. When he stops, still a few feet from his father, they stop too.

“You’re from Earth-1,” Robert pieces together, looking his son up and down. Right, Felicity remembers, most citizens of this Earth know of the existence of other worlds. More highly-evolved, Barry had said, though you wouldn’t be able to tell it from their security networks. “How…why are you here?”

Before any of them can answer, someone else enters the lair through a back entrance mostly obscured by equipment. Everyone, even Robert, stands at attention until a familiar voice echoes towards them, preceding its owner’s entrance.

“Alright old man, the Starling City Bank is officially re-secured. What’s next?”

Oliver’s breath takes yet another audible stutter step beside her when the source of the voice rounds the corner and comes to face them. “T-Tommy?”

He looks strange in the red hood, eye black smeared across his face, but Felicity recognizes the man from the photographs Oliver’s showed her and the few times she saw him trailing his friend through the hallways of Queen Consolidated. Even if she didn’t know his face, the expression on Oliver’s would tell her everything.

“Oh my god, Ollie!”

Tommy lunges so fast, Diggle starts from his defensive position, but he just wraps Oliver in an embrace, mumbling something into his friend’s shoulder that sounds like “never thought I’d see you again.” Oliver doesn’t say anything for a long moment, just slowly returns the hug, and when Felicity hears a shaky exhale, she realizes he was holding his breath.

“Wow, it’s uh… it’s really good to see you, buddy,” Tommy says again when they separate, eyes shining with tears and earnest emotion.

“You too,” Oliver chokes out. “Both of you.”

A somber mood settles over the room as Robert and Tommy take in his meaning, and in the silence, Felicity remembers that they’re on a deadline. So does Digg, who clears his throat.

“Right, sorry.” Oliver shakes his head, heaves another breath. “We uh, need your help. A friend of ours has let us know that the Earth-2 version of me is in some trouble.”

“Or _is_  some trouble,” Felicity corrects absently.

“That’s not possible,” Robert answers with a furrowed brow, mostly ignoring her aside, which is fine. “Oliver, you…he died on Lian Yu. He died in my arms.”

Oliver stands silent for what feels like few minutes, no doubt recalling the reversal of that scene that lives in his memory. It’s a heartbreaking moment that’s only softened in Felicity’s mind by the realization that he might get to make new memories with each of them, that their timelines together may not end in tragedy after all.

There will be time for that later, maybe. But now…

“Have you heard of the Lazarus Pit on this Earth?” she offers.

“I thought that was a legend,” Robert answers. “Something the League of Assassins made up to bolster their reputation.”

“So you know of the League?” Oliver responds to his father, but keeps his eyes fixed on Tommy. “You know your father is their leader?”

“My father is dead,” Tommy murmurs, matter-of-fact, his face suddenly gravely serious. “Or, he might as well be.”

It shouldn’t be so comforting that Malcolm Merlyn is reviled on all Earths, but Felicity finds a twisted kind of pleasure in it. “We have reason to believe that Malcolm Merlyn … Ra’s al Ghul, rather…” She spits the title out like it tastes bad, and that too, is the same on every Earth. “We think he brought Oliver back from the dead in order to groom him for the league.”

“Al-Saheem.” An icy wave washes over Felicity when the name leaves Oliver’s lips. His eyes dart to her, just briefly, and she can tell he felt it too.

“They were in Nanda Parbat until recently,” Felicity tells them, relating the information that Barry had frantically explained just a few short hours ago. “But they dropped off the grid a few weeks ago. We need to find them, because whatever they’ve got planned…”

“It’s not good,” Tommy finishes.

“That’ll be an understatement,” Robert adds. Oliver nods at them both, before turning back to face her.

“Can you…”

“Right!” Felicity springs to action, hustling over to their computer station, which is in basically the same spot, but significantly less sophisticated than she expected. “Do you mind? Not sure who runs the tech around here.”

“We make do,” Tommy admits, waving her on slightly sheepishly as he follows. Behind him, she sees Robert pulling Oliver aside, clasping a hand to his shoulder. “Anything big, Laurel gets one of her people on it.”

“Laurel?” When the name registers, Felicity looks back at Tommy, booting the computer with barely a glance. “I know Laurel. Who is she here?”

“She’s the chief of police, our ‘man on the inside,’ as it were” Tommy says, with pride that almost gives away his next admission. “And she’s my wife.”

“I’m glad you guys get to be happy on this Earth,” Felicity tells him honestly, and Tommy raises his eyebrows in something like surprised elation. There’s no time for tiptoeing around the truth, bizarre though these circumstances may be.

“And I’m glad Ollie found you on yours,” he answers. “Truly. Though, if I would have lived, I might have tried to find you first.”

Felicity blushes, actually blushes, and ducks her head back to the screen and the task at hand, absently opening an extra tab to search for this Earth’s version of herself, out of sheer curiosity. She works for maybe an hour, lulled by the murmured voices of Team Arrow members from two different Earths, until suddenly, she finds it, announcing her revelation with a gasp.

“What is it?” They gather around the workstation, and Oliver rests his hands on her shoulders, a gesture so familiar, it’s almost as comforting as the hand hold she’s been missing since they got here.

“Well, I was using a modded version of the facial recognition software I developed last year…” Felicity explains. Three of the four men smile at her proudly. She always knew Robert Queen would be a tougher nut to crack.

“I found you…him,” she continues. “He’s being held at a supermax prison in National City. They just brought him in a week or so ago.”

“A plant?” Robert’s quickest to the chase, and she nods.

“I think so. Obviously I don’t know what their plan is – riot, uprising, recruitment – but whatever they’ve got him there for…”

“It’s not good,” Oliver’s father finishes.

“Understatement,” Digg echoes.

“Well, we’ve got him,” Tommy says, with a hint of optimism that eases some of the knot that’s been growing in Felicity’s stomach since she realized the two of them were basically on their own. “Now we figure out how to stop him.”

“That’s not all,” she admits, voice going almost to a whisper. 

Oliver’s been silent, almost like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and at her words, his hand tenses on her shoulder. “What is it?”

“Well, you’re not the only prisoner with a familiar face at this particular supermax,” she reveals, pulling up the minimized screen to show them the surveillance feed that iced her blood in her veins. “I’m in there too.”

_A/N: I”M SO SORRY I KNOW THIS FEELS LIKE THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING._


End file.
